The pressing nature of the climate crisis, coupled with national climate action plans that are inadequate to restrict global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement has led to growing calls for more robust environmental policies (United Nations 2023). This has motivated some competition law scholars to advocate for a ‘green antitrust policy’ to amend competition rules, so they support the achievement of a climate-neutral1 economy (Schinkel and Treuren 2021).

The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change2 (UNFCCC) recognizes the imperative of climate action. Partly as a result of this kind of acknowledgement policymakers in Europe, US, UK, and Australia are revising their competition laws to facilitate this. As a party to UNFCCC, Canada also has a responsibility to align its policies with its climate commitments of reducing its emissions to net-zero by 2050 (Government of Canada 2022). The absence of regulatory mechanisms to assess the environmental impact of corporate mergers leaves a critical gap in Canada's competition policy framework that can be exploited by companies engaging in climate washing. Despite the acknowledgment by the Commissioner of Competition Bureau (Commissioner), Matthew Boswell, of the potential adverse effects of mergers on both markets and the environment, legislative amendments empowering the Bureau to incorporate environmental concerns remain absent. This paper explores the rationale behind this gap and its implications for Canada's environmental and economic landscape. Specifically, I address the question Should the Canadian Competition Act incorporate climate concerns in its corporate merger review?